Intervention
by zeroislove
Summary: My feeble attempt at making myself feel better about the ending of the anime! Even months later, Raimei simply can not shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong, and sets out to set Miharu straight.


Well, there is no denying that most of us were... a little upset about how you-know-who handled the ending of you-know-what. So in an effort to mend this disaster in my own imperfect way, I present you a fanfic.

Please note that this is anime!world, not manga!world. It is not manga!canon. It's my feeble attempt to make myself feel better about the anime.

Title: Intervention  
Author: zeroislove  
Rating: Pretty much squeaky clean (sorry)  
Pairing: Everyone?  
Warnings: ANGST AND FLUFF (what did you expect?) and also SPOILERS for both the anime and manga.

Written somewhat episodically, with Raimei as the red thread (because she has the most energy out of all of them).

**INTERVENTION**

Gau found his thoughts trailing away from his book as his eyes were caught by a bird sailing across the clear blue sky outside the window. So blue, and so wide and empty. Without thinking, he reached into his shirt and pulled out his necklace, idly flipping the little tag through his fingers that was hanging from it. A tag and a ribbon. He did this often, though by now he wasn't even aware of it most of the time. He startled violently when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Gau, it's me." Raimei. They had become quite close, since…

"Hey Raimei. What's up?" There was a pause. "Raimei?"

Her voice sounded slow and a little hesitant when she spoke again, which was rather unusual. "Gau, something's been bothering me. For a while now. I have to talk about it! And I thought maybe you would understand what I mean. It's about Miharu."

Gau frowned. "Miharu?"

"Yes. He's been… acting strange."

He looked at the tag in his hand. "Don't you think he's just… mourning?"

"Of course, but… it's just not right. He's – you didn't know him back then, but he's starting to be just the way he used to be. Apathetic. He hardly ever talks anymore, and he's always zoning out. He says he's ok with Yoite – you know."

Gau's heart stung for the duration of a needle prick, and then returned to the dull ache he had grown accustomed to.

"But I think he's not. Gau… don't you think Yoite was acing weird too, before he – died?"

"I thought he was happy."

"He was KNITTING."

"I thought he was knitting because he was happy."

Raimei sounded frustrated. "It's not right, it's just not! It was weird, they were weird as soon as they came back. I know that happy for them didn't mean knitting, it meant being together – forever!"

Gau thought of Raikou and blushed. "But… there's nothing we can do."

There was another pause. "Maybe not. But I decided I have to try. Something. I need to do something. It's just… all wrong. Miharu said he sent the Shinrabansou away, but do you really think it can be destroyed like that? Just like that?"

The back of his neck began to prickle. "You mean… you think it's still around somewhere?"

"I think it might still be in the same place it was."

"But then… that… do you think…?"

"I am going to find Kouchi, and we will find out. Gau, if we can, if we can we will get them both back."

His heart beat frantically and he couldn't stop it. At all. "Where is Kouchi?"

"I don't know."

***

Miharu startled when Shijima jumped on his shoulder. He absent-mindedly started petting her, leaning against the railing outside the restaurant, looking out over the houses below.

"Miharu!" A voice called from inside the shop.

"Coming!"

He sounded cheerful. Sometimes he even felt cheerful. But more and more frequently he jut found himself standing right here, thinking, and suddenly it would be two hours later and he would have no idea what exactly he had been thinking about. Sometimes he thought he heard an echo of a voice, somewhere, calling him, but it was too faint to remember. Whenever he returned to reality, the only thought that remained in his head was a name. 'Yoite…' he thought, not wanting to say it out loud. His tongue did not want to pull that name out of his mind, as if afraid to wear it out, to use up its meaning.

Shijima jumped to the ground and meowed at him.

"Why do you still hang around me anyway?" He asked. "I didn't think you'd come back."

She made a sound that a cat would make if a cat could chuckle, then purred and rubbed against his leg.

"Miharu!"

"Sorry, coming!"

***

Kouichi sighed as he closed the door behind him, then took off his glasses and tiredly ran a hand across his face. Now he knew. Really, he had known all along, that's why he went on this brain-dead trip in the first place. He was still immortal. Still as invincible as ever, still in one piece, his heart still beating no matter how many times it may break. He was making his way over to the bathroom when there was a knock on the door – and a loud one at that. He wondered who would know that he was back as he opened the door.

Ramei would. Of course. Somehow. So she could be mad at him. Which quite evidently, she was, hands propped on her hips as her eyes shot icy daggers at him. Gau was standing behind her, looking uncomfortable.

"Where have you been?!"

"Ah… away."

"Don't say stupid stuff like that!" She poked him in the chest with her finger. "I need you!"

He blushed fervently. "What?"

At his reaction, she blushed just as red. "Around! I need to talk to you about Miharu."

"Ah." The sound was somewhere between disappointed and relieved, and Raimei's heart fluttered just a little bit.

"Raimei thinks Miharu still has the Shinrabanshou," Gau explained.

"What?" Kouichi said again, but this time he perked up. "What makes you say that?"

"Because," Raimei said. "…Because. He's weird. Everything's weird. Everything seems like it's the opposite of what it should have been."

That sort of hit home. He flinched. "But why does that mean that he still has it?"

There was a 'thump' and the sound of a window sliding open, and Shijima sat crouching on the windowsill, staring at them with her large eyes through a mess of silver locks.

"Because," she said, "You can't get rid of the Shinrabanshou that easily. Especially when you don't really want to." She smoothly jumped off the windowsill and sauntered over to them.

Kouchi frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Come on, Kouchi…" Shijima smiled a little. "I know you feel it too. The same way you knew you were still immortal before you went on our little trip to get yourself test-killed."

"What?!" Ramei shrieked, and Kouchi flinched again. "You did what?!"  
He groaned. "That was not nice," he said accusingly to the silver-haired girl.

She shrugged. "It needed to be said."

"It did indeed!" Raimei yelled. "Kouchi, why would you do something stupid like that?? How could you… why would you do that… to…"

His eyes grew wide as she suddenly shrunk back, hugging her arms to her chest and hanging her head, strands of blonde hair falling in front of her face like sheets of rain. "Why would you do something like that to me? Everything else is falling apart, why you?"

His heart skipped. He could only remember one other time he had seen his look this distraught and forlorn, and it wretched his gut. Hesitantly, he reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Because… I can't do this anymore. I needed to prove to myself that I have to leave."

"Leave?"

"I couldn't bear seeing you… I just can't do it anymore."

She looked up at him, and she was mad again. And she was crying. He wanted to close his eyes, but hers held his with such fire that he couldn't look away no matter what.

"Have you EVER," she said, slowly and deliberately, "Considered how selfish that is of you?"

He stood dumbfounded. "…Selfish?"

"Incredibly selfish. And stupid. And… stupid!"

"I…"

"Shut up!" And then she hugged him. Tightly, and still crying. "Don't do stupid stuff anymore, ok? And don't leave! Don't leave, we have to fix this!"

***

He sat on his bed and stared across the room at the scarf hanging from a hook by the door. Just stared. He wanted to touch it, but he didn't. He wanted to use it, it was getting chilly, but he couldn't. All he could do was stare at it from across the room.

"Miharu…"

There was the voice again. That echo. The words vibrating inside him like violin strings, like piano wire, strung tightly and ready to snap if he moved.

"Miharu…!"

"Go away!" He muttered. "Go away. Please. Just go. Everything's alright. I'm alright."

***

"Sensei!"

"You have to help us."

"We need to do something!"

Thobari backed up in shock as the three youths crowded in his doorframe and all talked at once, and the silver-haired girl stood grinning behind them.

"Kouchi… Raimei, Gau – what are you doing here? What do you need me for?"

***

Idly, he meandered through the park. The sun was approaching the trees, painting the leaves red and gold and making the sky seem transparent. Miharu stuffed his hands in his pockets and shivered.

"Miharu…"

He winced. Not again.

"Miharu!!!"

Wait – that voice was not inside his head. He turned around to see Thobari, Raimei, Kouchi, Gau and Shijima walk towards him. He frowned.

"What's this all about?" He asked when they had reached him.

"Miharu, you have to use the Shinrabanshou!" Raimei blurted.

He recoiled and blushed fiercely. "What?! What are you talking about? It's long gone. I can't use it anymore."

Kouichi regarded him with bright eyes from behind his glasses. "I don't think that's true," he said calmly. "I think you just want it to be gone."

Miharu's heartbeat thundered in his ears, and he knew his face was turning redder as he inched away from his friends. "It's gone, ok?!" He snapped. "I sent it away. What is this, anyway?!"

Shijima rocked on her heels and smiled. "An intervention," she purred.

"A what??"

"Miharu," Raimei said urgently as she grabbed his arms. "Please… snap out of it, ok? You must know that this is all wrong."

His eyes felt achy. Dry. Like they were trying to do the opposite of crying. He yanked his arms away. "Everything's fine," he repeated in a shaky voice. He turned around and started to walk away.

"Miharu!" Raimei pleaded.

"Leave me alone!"

"No!! Don't you want Yoite back??"

He froze. For a moment, he felt like he couldn't even breathe. He was shivering again. Was it the cold?

"………… No……………."

"You're lying!"

"He………….. he was………….. he was happy… He wanted it just like that. He said…."

" 'He' ?" Ramei's voice was almost breaking now. "You can't even say his name can you! Yoite! He was Yoite, and he meant more to you than anything, more than –"

Hot tears were running down her face as she felt a hand gently touching her shoulder and looked up. It was Thobari's hand, but he was looking at Miharu.

"More than any of us," he completed her sentence, his voice heavy with sadness.

He let go of Raimei's shoulder and, hands in his pockets, walked over to Miharu, who still stood frozen in place, his narrow shoulders high and tense, head hung low. He slowly circled around and looked down at him.

"Miharu… if you can, it's ok," he said softly.

"I can't!" the boy's voice sounded hoarse, like it was supposed to be shouting but didn't quite make it.

Thobari knelt in the ground and looked up at the green eyes, like he had done once before, a long time ago. Except that now, those eyes were empty. Not blank and deep as they had been back then, but dark and lost.

"What if you can?"

"I can't! It's what he wanted! It'd be selfish!"

"It's ok," Thobari repeated.

Little by little, life returned to the green eyes. Pain rushed into them like water filling a glass, like an avalanche starting to rumble on top of mountain.

"But I…"

Miharu's voice was shaking now, and he was breathing in ragged rips as if something was shredding his heart with wretched claws.

"It hurts…"

A deep breath tore through him, sucking in all the air he needed to scream.

"It hurts too much!!!"

He fell to his knees, and he was crying, harder than he ever had in his entire life, wrapping his hands around his head and crying, crying as all the pain of the past months rushed through his mind and body and heart and he couldn't stop. He fell to the ground, curled up and helpless and crying, and he thought he felt the world implode behind his tightly shut eyes in a bright flash of blinding light.

"Miharu…!" This time, he followed the voice. He ran towards it, arms outstretched, ignoring all other thought or reason, just running. His hand touched a cool, ghostly form like the embodiment of a sentence, and everything went white.

***

"Miharu!"

His eyes snapped open. The room was light and warm, and he could hear birds outside. He frowned. Then someone called him again, closer this time.

"Hey Miharu, are you ready to go? Yukimi is going to be mad if we're late again, and he said Kazuho only makes this dish once a month…"

Miharu froze, and his eyes grew wide. Slowly, ever so slowly he turned around. And there in the doorway stood a familiar silhouette, tall and lanky, hand resting on the door frame, black bangs sticking out from under his newsboy cap.

"…Miharu?"

He stared for a moment longer, but then something broke. His throat caught in a violent sob as he raced across the room and flung himself into the other boy's arms.

"Umph!" said Yoite as the wind was knocked out of him.

"Yoite!!" he breathed into the warm spot where the black coat was unbuttoned. "Yoite!!"

Yoite was bewildered, but then wrapped his arms around the small frame and hugged him tightly. When Miharu looked up, the older boy was smiling down at him with a slightly bemused expression.

"Hey – are you ok?"

Miharu smiled through the tears. "Yes. Yes. I'm alright. Everything's alright now."

He leaned his head back against the other's chest and smiled some more.

Probably, he thought, I think I'll probably be smiling forever.

*** THE FLUFFY AND SATISFYING END ***

You are left to assume that things worked out for everyone else, too. Or will soon. ^_~


End file.
